Male Expendability Part 2 - addendum

I have received a comment elsewhere regarding this post, particularly in reference to the current reporting from Pakistan - reporting which, quite rightly, was pointed out to me contains a great many images of men, more so than I've possibly seen elsewhere in a long time.

I feel I may have tried to cram too much into that post, too fast, and would like to copy the text of my reply to my commentator in order to perhaps explain a little better the idea behind it:

"In fairness, you've got me on that point. Case of poor timing on my part, and I agree that it does make the images a hell of a lot stronger – and you're absolutely right [the use of these images] doesn't dehumanise [those men], which is my point – it's when you don't hear about/see people that that happens.

But I still think the general principle still does stand. I've been watching the reporting of news for quite a while – certainly the last couple of months – because I wanted to investigate over a period of time and see if this concept held water in my mind (that's the whole point – questioning these ideas and seeing if they work in my head – and I'm glad someone finds it thought-provoking, even if they think I'm full of it).

It just seems to hold overall. There's a difficulty in writing on this stuff in that it's hard not to come across as being “all men are victims, all women aren't, hark on my suffering!”, which is not what I intend, but that's the way some people are going to be inclined to read it. But in order to talk about what I feel like is out of kilter on one 'side', it's inevitably going to come across as rather sensationalist. Perhaps I need to work on that.

It may seem a bit petty to reduce stuff down to headlines and photos, but they are indicators of thinking and attitude. Ultimately, I can't talk about every single news article, can't make a comprehensive list of every single headline or photo, and to a large degree I have to talk in generalisations, but from what I've seen the overall trend each way seems to stand. Whether or not the word 'man' is specifically included within the body of text, the prevalence of specifically pointing out female casualties or whatnot over males (the phrase “including X amount of women” is an interesting example) does appear to be a real trend, and seems to me to imply greater implied importance or sympathy toward women than men. This is where the issue of not including the word 'man' raises it's head for me - when women seem to be highlighted over and above men. It does seem that female-specific issues and problems get a lot more public time and attention than male-specifics. And it does seem that on issues that effect both genders, often the majority of weighting, time and attention is given over to female-specific – whether that means the male-specific side is ignored, or not given even footing, it seems to be the case overall. Which does not strike me as right."